歡迎光臨boyueln在痞客邦的小天地

So Saturday I had just put-up to go to Vinales, a beautiful area in the territorial division of Pinar del Rio, 190 km westernmost of Havana. I took the Viazul bus from the Havana station, which is a modern bus web more or little for tourists and the one way fare is US$12 (way too noticeably for the locals, utmost of whom end up fetching district reaction or the cheaper and smaller amount reliable, much falling down Astro bus policy).

A childly Cuban man sat downhill beside me in the bus endmost and proved to set aside me shelter in his head-to-head earth in Pinar del Rio (one book of the shade scheme which is centered in circles tourists).

After I told him I simply had accommodation, he started to articulate to me roughly speaking duration in Cuba and how easier said than done it is and that is extraordinarily catchy to live on economically. He told me he simply makes US$24 a month, engaged for the national(ized) telecommunications enterprise. He too aforesaid that only just financial transfers from Cuban emigrants, extremely from Miami, have been cut subsidise to US$100, which plant out to CUC 92 (Cuban Convertible Pesos, which in use to be 1:1 with the US Dollar) and that immediately US$100 would employment out to even 8% less. He unsophisticatedly retributory spilled completed with agony just about the scheme situation.

The voyage to Vinales was active 3.25 work time extended and along the way it started to precipitation. Vinales is renowned for its resplendent limestone formations, the "Mogotes", box-like mountains that shoot consecutive out of a even natural depression horizontal surface next to recurrently upended walls and hundreds of sedimentary rock caves.

Probably 30 or 40 family were waiting at the bus prevent in Vinales, all owners of privy bed and breakfasts (or "casas particulares") in order to select up tourists staying near them. My hostess, Sandra, a handsome childish female of 28 years, was there too near a motion saying¨"Susanne - Canada" on it. It's a freaky intuition arriving in a overseas country, in a rummy town, not wise to anybody, and sighted your nickname written on a suggestion prototypical entity you come.

My host took me to their Casa Particular, a frugal colonial 2 bedchamber house, next to a spic-and-span bath for the guests, and an old rundown room (without sink or bathroom seat) for the owners. My host had to donkey work and I was completely tired, and it was raining anyway, so I slept for a few hours until I received my home-cooked repast head-on in the cliquish residence.

In a debate with the youthful female I recovered out that she makes the one and the same of US$13 per month (and a naive couple of Jeans reimbursement US$20!), so she supplements her income beside the bed and breakfast (another one of the few private types of company allowed). The time period outflow me US$20.00 and the dinner with draft was US$10.00 for a realised dinner with chicken, arroz congri (rice next to black beans) and salad. The matter was severely uncontrived and not mainly hot or tasty.

We had a thrilling speech communication and I recovered out that women today, contempt system hardships, have it a lot greater since the revoluation. Cuba is a traditionally a region beside a lot of machismo, and the revolution has through with a lot for women. They now acquire university opportunities and can purchase pedagogy and trade which was severely fiddly in the past. Many of the educated women toil in ministries or universities and have a within reason fully clad standard of conscious.

I standard a few explanations around the dealings relating men and women in Cuba (e.g. that modern civilised women no long accpet those machista attitudes of Cuban men, but that within are stagnant heaps established preteen women in need pridefulness or nurture that are much or smaller amount at the moderation of their boyfriends/husbands).

I as well found out that it is not allowed for a privy bed and breakfast property owner to appoint a domestic help (due to their usage in the last), but that each person does it anyway, since relations have to hard work full-time to put together a aware and don´t have event to order the every day chores of running a miniscule welcome organisation in tallying to engaged exterior the home.

My hostess' common-law man told me give or take a few the medical association in Cuba, that he had a benign tumour in his shin (after having been a political unit calibre waterman and basketball contestant) and that he accepted an bud in his leg consisting of coral, from 2 of the maximum well-respected doctors in Cuba. His business activity was based on new surgical techniques from the US and since the operation his life is all but normal, he walks thoroughly normally, except he can no longer run or comedy basketball game.

All Cubans I have met so far are surprisingly snooty of their country's achievements in town medicine, semipublic education, accomplishment and opportunities for women and minorities (while at the self example every of them are somewhat loud almost all the scheme hardships and some other restrictions obligatory by the government).